An American Muslim Journal

Muslims and Free Speech - Attorney Marc Stern of New York City's letter to the editor

Whatever the wisdom of filing criminal charges against students who thwarted a speech by Michael B. Oren, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, at the University of California, Irvine, it is disheartening that the students’ supporters continue to maintain, even after the university disciplined them, that their actions constituted an exercise of free speech.

via www.nytimes.com

This is from a letter to the NTY editor.  The letter writer is talking about the case of some students who staged a peaceful protest at some state university in California.  The speaker was an ambassador from Israel (Ambassador Oren, I think).

The author of this letter is an attorney.  I cannot disagree more with what my fellow attorney has to say here.

Just because the school chose to discipline these students does not change the fact that what they did was an exercise in free speech.  And just because the prosecutor in that county had the poor judgment to bring charges against these students doesn't mean the students committed any crimes.

I hope these kids get a good lawyer and fight this case.  I think they can win it.

I don't have access to Westlaw or Lexis but a quick search on google suggests that this is the relevant penal code section under which  the Orange County prosecutor is bring the criminal charges against the students:

Every person who, without authority of law, willfully disturbs or breaks up any assembly or meeting that is not unlawful in its character, other than an assembly or meeting referred to in Section 302 of the Penal Code or Section 18340 of the Elections Code, is guilty of a misdemeanor.

Did the actions of the students disturb or break up the meeting?  I don't think so.

From what I've heard about the protest undertaken by the students - each student stood up and made some statements of protest during Mr. Oren's speech and then quietly and peacefully walked to the center aisle where campus security escorted them out of the room - it doesn't add up to "disturb" or "break up".

I'm not up on the latest in First Amendment law but I don't think their actions can sustain a factual finding of "disturbing" or "break up" as set forth in the statute.  If this isn't the statute then I welcome someone in the blogosphere sharing with me the correct penal code section.  Let's talk about it!

I'm not sure if Cohen vs. California is still good law but if it is, then I think it helps the case of the students' case.

I think this whole sordid affair is a learning opportunity: plan your civic actions well and be prepared to be bullied by not-so-enlightened prosecutors by having defense counsel on hand.

________________________

As an aside, have you seen the kind of nasty anti-Muslim hatred this case has whipped up?  It's ugly! Right here in Illinois - at the University of Illinois' Daily Illini - there are some seriously twisted people!

 

 

Quiet Worries as Israel Watches an Ally Depart - NYTimes.com

“We don’t know who will be running things in the coming months in Egypt but we have to keep two things in mind,” one top official said. “The first is that the only example we have of this kind of thing in the region is Iran in 1979. You can’t take that out of your mind. The second is that if Egypt pulls back in any way from its peace with Israel, it will discourage anyone else in the region, including the Palestinians, from stepping forward. So the regional implications for us are significant.”

via www.nytimes.com

This is a quote from an unnamed Israeli official.

First - The Palestinians have stepped forward, bent over backwards and suffered so much oppression by the Israeli occupation.  And year after year they keep coming back to the negotiating table.  So this notion that anything happening in Egypt would discourage the Palestinians from stepping forward is simply foolish.

Second - if Mubarak was Israel's ally and the peace Israel enjoyed was between Israel and Mubarak rather than the nation of Egypt (read: the Egyptian people) then that is Israel's mistake.  If Israel is worried about peace with the fall of Egyptian dictator Mubarak, then perhaps it needs to look at its own policies towards its Palestinian neighbors and become an honest partner in peace.

Third - I would agree that the Iranians and the Egyptians both revolutions ousted American-supported dictator and both populations are predominantly Muslim, but that's the extent of the major similarities. The dissimilarities between the two revolutions are far more notable.  I was just a kid in '79 but I vaguely remember something about Americans being held hostage in Iran after the Shah was overthrown and a also recall lot of anti-American sentiments in Iran in '79.  I don't see any of that in Egypt today.

Perhaps this is what was needed for true Middle East peace.  Perhaps, if the Arab world moves towards democracy, then we Americans can treat all of the countries of that region - Israel included - as equal partners.

Wow!  Wouldn't that be refreshing?

 

Mike Huckabee is stupid, stupid, stupid for shilling the Eretz Israel shtick

Mike Huckabee is stupid.  No, I did not come to this conclusion just now.  And no, I did not come to this conclusion suddenly.  It took a while.  I had to hear a lot of stupid comments over several years, but now, with his latest stupid comment I felt compelled to make it official.  Huckabee is stupid.

Have a look and listen for yourself.  This is Mike Huckabee in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, a part of Palestine, at some ground-breaking ceremony for another illegal Israeli settlement:

There is part of what Huckabee said in this clip (quoted from TMP):

I cannot imagine as an American being told that I could not live in certain places in America because I was Christian, or because I was white, or because I spoke English," Huckabee said. "I would be outraged if someone told me that in my country, I would be prohibited and forbidden to live in a part of that country, for any reason. 

Well Mike, since you put it that way, I'm guessing you'll understand why Palestinians are unhappy that their land is being taken by Israel and unlawfully annexed for the use of its citizens.  Right?! 

Israelis and Jews absolutely have the right to live in peace.  But so to do the Palestinians.  So why do American politicians go over to Israel and pander to the extremist Israelis who are aggressively pushing their way into the West Bank?  Don't even bother trying to explain it.  It's called shilling the Eretz Israel shtick for campaign dollars.

In the end this pandering to the extremist elements of Israel is counter-productive to bringing about a negotiated peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians.  We Americans care about this conflict and about bringing peace and stability to that part of the world because we need to diffuse one of the most potent and valid complaints harbored by the Arab street (American bias against Palestinians) which will, in turn, further dilute the recruiting power of violent extremists.

Oh, and please save the blather about Israel being the only democracy in the Middle East.  Recent events make it abundantly clear that Arabs want democracy but the despots who oppress them have a lot of nifty weapons to keep them down.  I heard that the tear gas used to quell peaceful Egyptian protesters over the past 8 days came from us (American).

 

HAARETZ.com: Israel warns Argentina that Recognizing Palestinian state shatters peace process

From HAARETZ.com:

Israel's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday condemned as "highly regrettable" Argentina's announcement of the previous day that it recognized Palestine as "a free and independent state" within its borders prior to the 1967 Six-Day War.

I don't see how this recognition by a country thousands of miles away is anything more than a morale boost to the millions of Palestinians languishing, generation after generation, under Israeli occupation.

Has Argentina recognized Israel as a free and independent state?  I'm guessing they have (but if they haven't please let me know).  To recognize Israel pursuant to the UN division of Palestine after World War II is to recognize Palestine pursuant to the same UN decision.

Our country needs to change our policy towards Israel.  Peace cannot be achieved through such lopsided support of an occupation force.  Israelis are no more nor any less valuable than Palestinians.  We should treat them both with the same measure of humanity.